Down the Drainpipe

Rav Mordechai Smith, who was twenty-two when he learned with the thirteen-year-old Yehuda Zev, later described how sensitive the boy already was to other people. Their learning began very early in the morning.

Yehuda Zev did not want his footsteps on the stairs to wake anyone in the house. So each morning he climbed out of a second-story window, slid down a drainpipe to the backyard, and went off to learn, leaving the household asleep.